Delighted Beauty: An Interview with Tom Cheesman

Dr Tom Cheesman at Swansea University runs a fantastic website, Delighted Beauty, on the multiple translations of great writings, and the differences between the translations, and what that can tell us about the work in question.

 You can try out the site/tool here and you can read about it in this article.

 How to use http://www.delightedbeauty.org/vvv: a 2-minute introduction:

 • Sign in top right of home page, as guest (instructions provided). Select Corpora > Othello corpus > Open.

 • On the right of the ‘Base text’ pane, the buttons lead to various visualisations. (Another is accessed by clicking any name in the corpus.)

 • First choose ‘E & V’ (Eddy and Viv): and for a good example of what’s on offer, locate Brabantio’s ‘Here is the man, this Moor’, click on it, and then try the ‘Sort by’ and ‘Order’ options above.

Dr Cheesman agreed to answer a few questions for Brave New Words.

Q: Why did you decide to start this project?

A: A few years ago I was working on a very interesting and controversial trans-adaptation of Othello, by Feridun Zaimoglu and Günter Senkel. They said in an interview that they’d looked at “more than a dozen” other German translations. I’d no idea there were so many. Thinking of comparing their translation with earlier and contemporary ones, I started collecting books and scripts. Soon I had about 40: far too many! Studying multiple translations throws up problems of presentation, scale and navigation. They’re all acts of interpretation both of the translated work and of their own cultural contexts; they differ in countless details, all of which can be significant and interesting; it’s difficult to present a study of such a mass of texts without demanding far too much of your reader. You can study how a tiny sample gets differently translated; I did that, with one couplet, and I also created a website for crowd-sourcing the same couplet in any language. But really I wanted to find a way to explore whole texts and whatever aspects we want to. In 2010 my colleague David Berry convinced me of the potential of computational methods. Amazing work such as Ben Fry’s Traces made me realise that web-based digital tools, especially data visualization techniques, can help anyone explore multiple translations of anything, any way they want. Instead of being piled on shelves, digitised translations are available for anyone to look into (subject to ©). Text data visualisations (textviz) can work with full text contents (like the ‘parallel view’ on our site), or with representations derived from texts (using non-words, like our ‘alignment maps’, or words, as in things like Wordles). So textviz can bypass language barriers to some extent: I can find things out about Chinese translations compared to Russian ones, without knowing either language. In our ‘Eddy and Viv’ view, we use machine translation, which cries out for a user correction and discussion option, in a Wiki or whatever: still, it’s useful. -- ‘Eddy and Viv’ was a key conceptual breakthrough: at some point I worked out that formulae from information retrieval and stylometry could be adapted to put a mathematical value on the ‘distinctiveness’ of a translation in relation to others (a lot of retranslations are often similar, but some are more dissimilar than others); and that, if you first break a translated text into segments (sentences, play-speeches, or whatever), and then calculate distinctiveness values for all the translations of each one, then you can derive a value for the amount of variation among translations which a segment provokes. Where in a text do translators disagree more and less? Which speeches, which character parts? That’s the idea behind the tool we call ‘Eddy and Viv’.

Q: Was it a challenge to find funding? What about to find collaborators/contributors?

A: The idea might take a few minutes to explain but is basically simple and powerful, and funders like that. I’ve been very lucky with collaborators here in Swansea. David Berry put me in touch with a Computer Scientist, Bob Laramee, a specialist in Data Visualization. He’d not worked with texts before but was intrigued by the idea, and he and his PhD Zhao Geng have done some great work – as yet offline. Then we came across some fascinating text visualisation work by Stephan Thiel, doing just the kind of things we were interested in: ‘Understanding Shakespeare’. Obviously here was a designer we could work with. And Stephan was up for it. Our university’s Research Institute for Arts and Humanities funded a pilot project – an RA, Alison Ehrmann, copied and scanned my collection of German Othellos. We had a really good break when I requested a free trial of OCR software from ABBYY, and their UK sales manager Colin Miller got in touch personally and offered to help. He gave us free use of their Recognition Server, with Gothic fonts recognition and a suite of historical and modern dictionaries. And finally, along came the AHRC with their ‘Digital Transformations’ funding opportunity, just as my head of department, Andy Rothwell, recruited Kevin Flanagan to do a PhD here on Translation Memory. Kevin just happens to have all the skills and attitude needed to build a corpus management database and segment/align tools from scratch in order to make a ‘Translation Array’ actually work, feeding data to cool interfaces designed by Stephan at Studio Nand. I can’t code for toffee. It could all have gone horribly wrong.

Q: What has been one of your most interesting findings/realisations?

A: Lots! At the level of ‘Tell me about German Othellos’, my one-couplet sample study showed that in the 1950s and 60s, translations briefly became more distinctive or perhaps ‘daring’ than ever, then more conservative than ever, and then around 1990 they became really quite wild. The Array confirms that overall pattern but with some adjustments. Now the translator Hermann Motschach, in the 1990s, turns out to be right at the top of the scale, or to put it another way, his version is wildly wilful in almost every line. There is no public information at all about Hermann Motschach, except that he has translated almost all of Shakespeare’s plays and his scripts are used quite a lot by German theatres. Needs studying!

I found out a lot of interesting things when I researched the short descriptions I wrote for each translation. The stories behind them tell the 19th-, 20th- and 21st-century history of Germany and Austria. Check out Bab/Levy and Zeynek, for instance.

More broadly, I keep finding out about more and more examples of multiple translations, sometimes quite astonishing, all grist to the Arrays mill of the future. For example, Project Yao is a database of American fiction in Chinese, co-created by Joe Lockard, who tells me that some canonical novels such as Call of the Wild, published in 3 or 4 translations until about 1990, have since been published in up to 40 translations: that’s different translations, not re-editions. The sheer volume of versions of Shakespeare is crazy, too…

Q: What have you enjoyed the most about this project? And the least? A: The worst thing is that now that we’ve created this site with its array of Othellos, I have no time to use it for research, to explore the texts and find out how they vary and what that might correlate with. (Do translators translate Othello’s part more differently than other parts? is one question raised by what I’ve been able to do so far.) The priority now is to get more funding. When I’m not teaching, preparing teaching, or writing for you, BJ, I’m working on the next grant proposal.

There are many good things. Working with my collaborators. The delight of Jan Rybicki at seeing the platform: as soon as it was launched he started using it to work on his English-Polish novels corpus. The sense of exciting new horizons. What we have is a proof of concept prototype which just demonstrates the potential in a small way. This could become a big deal, not just for translation studies, comparative studies, language studies, cross-cultural studies, but beyond ‘studies’: for public understanding of translation and language, and for creative translation practice. If you’re doing a new translation/adaptation of a classic, and 300 versions are explorable online, in umpteen languages, with interpretative tools and a global social network around them, then of course you can ignore that. But you have some interesting new options too. 

Thank you so much, Dr Cheesman! And good luck with Delighted Beauty!

Nobel Prize in Literature

This year’s Nobel Prize in literature goes to Mo Yan.

What do you think? I must confess I'd never heard of this author!

Guest Post: Online Universities and Resources Look to Increase Bilingualism Around the World

Learning a language is a very valuable skill in a globalizing and increasingly competitive economy; however as this post discusses, it is something few Americans have managed to do. As technology improves, online language classes are becoming a viable option for people to use when learning a new language. Brave New Words visited the issue of a lack or language training in the United States in a guest article about 5 years ago. But since then, many more options have become available through the Internet for Americans who wish to learn a second language, as Jennifer Jenkins writes below. Jennifer is well-versed in all issues related to technology and online learning. Frequently, she contributes to http://www.onlineuniversity.net/, a resource for students who are considering attending school online.

Despite the need for bilingualism within our globalized society, most Americans only speak one language. Today, many US citizens are turning to web-based resources in order to learn another language – and many experts agree that these measures are highly effective.

According to a Gallup survey, roughly three-quarters of Americans believe that English fluency should be compulsory for US immigrants. However, the poll also revealed that only one quarter of the population could hold a conversation in a language other than English; the majority (55 percent) spoke Spanish, followed by European languages like French (17 percent) and German (10 percent). Rates of bilingualism did seem to increase with education; while one-fifth of high school graduates are bilingual, the percentage rose for college students (25 percent), college graduates (33 percent) and those with postgraduate degrees (43 percent). However, nearly 70 percent of all Americans believe that bilingualism is either essential or valuable in today’s job market.

According to a March 2012 article in The New York Times, employment opportunities are merely one of the benefits of bilingualism. Recent studies indicate that learning another language improves mental and cognitive skills – and may even ward off dementia and other conditions that come with age. Additionally, those who speak two or more languages are also more aware of their surroundings, says Spanish researcher Albert Costa. “Bilinguals have to switch languages quite often — you may talk to your father in one language and to your mother in another language,” he noted. “It requires keeping track of changes around you in the same way that we monitor our surroundings when driving.” There are also social benefits, due to the diverse social fabric in this country. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the number of children (ages 5-17) who spoke a second language at home rose from 10 percent in 1980 to 21 percent in 2009. In the coming years, bilingualism will play a major role in the way Americans communicate with one another.

The solution to improving widespread bi- and multilingualism may lie with the Internet, writes Eric A. Taub of NYT. As connectivity has risen on a global level and the advent of social media has essentially brought the world together, many companies have unveiled language programs for the masses. Breaking away from traditional curricula, these programs utilize interactive media, social networking and other unconventional tools to teach new language fluency. Many of these programs are free, though experts note that even the most expensive ones are far less costly than college tuition. And while brick-and-mortar courses typically require a substantial time commitment from students, e-courses allow learners to acquire language skills at their convenience.

The most popular electronic language program in recent years has been Rosetta Stone. For $1,000, students receive structured lessons, live video chats with native speakers and access to a web-based discussion forum; Rosetta Stone currently offers 30 language programs. TellMeMore is another popular online program. For an annual fee of $390, users can access extensive glossaries, communicate with native speakers via video and complete practice exercises for up to six different languages. Less expensive options include LiveMocha, which offers free lessons and charges a small fee for live tutorials with native speakers, and Babbel, which offers free trial lessons in English, Spanish, French, German and Italian, followed by a fee of $12 per month. Free programs include BBC Languages, which features audio and video media for more than 30 languages, and Busuu, an interactive course that utilizes online communities. Finally, smartphone apps are available from Lonely Planet Phrasebooks, Oxford Translator Travel Pro and World Nomad.

For years, Americans have earned a negative reputation among the international community for their low collective levels of bilingualism. Now, thanks to electronic media, US citizens are learning foreign languages at an unprecedented rate. 

Guest Post: Translated Fiction Favourites

For myself, the joys of being an avid fan of fiction come not just in reading, but also in discovering books and authors. It may be something that’s new, passed me by before, or come before my time.

Fortunately in this sense, the last decade or so has seen translated fiction widen as an avenue which to explore. My knowledge of the publishing industry is limited to say the least, so I’m not sure whether this is mostly down to a conscious effort on some part or just the way publishing and the literary world has evolved; all I know is that translated fiction accounts for some of the best books I’ve read in recent years.

I obviously only get to greedily enjoy the end product of translated fiction as a monolingual reader (ashamedly, I might add!) who never sees nor would understand the original text. The translation process is never far from my mind when I’m reading, though. A lot of the time the prose flows so naturally that it’s unnoticeable that someone has gone to agonising lengths to capture the essence of the source text. Other times you detect evidence of a translator’s work, which often serves to give the novel a special charm that only a translation can give. Certain words and phrases stand out which you realise must have been derived from words wholly unique to the source language. Take fictional French detective Commissaire Adamsberg for instance, who is frequently referred to as a ‘cloud shoveller’ in the novel listed below. It’s a translated phrase you’ll never hear in the English language, yet it has a unique meaning in French which is described by Fred Vargas (translated by Sian Reynolds) and perfectly epitomises Adamsberg’s character. And no, I don’t know what the original French term is!

Below are some of my all-time favourite translated works and some recently published ones well worth a place on your bookshelf or kindle. There is a particular emphasis on the Latin American fiction that has captivated me since first reading One Hundred Years of Solitude. Grizzly Scandinavian crime fiction seems to have got the sort of exposure only topped by ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ lately, so doesn’t make the list!

Purgatory by Tomas Eloy Martinez (translated by Frank Wynne)

An absorbing and deeply personal semi-ghost story from Tomas Eloy Martinez, underpinned by the fascist regime in 1970s Argentina. An Argentine woman in exile in the States finds a man in a restaurant identical to her husband presumed killed in conflict thirty previously, and from there unfolds a stunning narrative that proves why Martinez is one of Latin America’s most celebrated literary greats.

The Milkman in the Night by Andrey Kurkov (translated by Amanda Love Darragh)

A pessimistic portrayal of a Russia saturated with greed and corruption is all too relevant in these turbulent times for the country. Kurkov intertwines several bizarre storylines, including a man having an affair in his sleep and a cat arisen from the dead, in this compelling combination of black humour and social commentary.

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafron (translated by Lucia Graves)

You’ll be unlikely to question why this tale stemming from young a boy’s discovery of a mysterious volume in a labyrinthine library has sold 15 million copies and counting sold worldwide after reading it for the first time. It has the style and suspense you would expect of an international bestseller, whilst at the same time being thought-provoking and capturing the claustrophobia of Franco-era Spain.

The Blue Hour by Alonso Cueto (translated by Frank Wynne)

A wealthy lawyer serves as the The Blue Hour’s main character, but this is no bland legal thriller. Similar in ways to Purgatory in that the past of a bloody civil war catches up to engulf those in the present, Cueto unlocks the horrors of Peru’s history to a dramatic yet beautiful narrative.

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Marcia Marquez (translated by Gregory Rabassa)

South American literature shines just as brightly in Colombia, too. This classic from the country’s most acclaimed author isn’t always easy to follow and is one of those novels in which you will notice new subtleties each time you read it that escaped your attentions previously. It’s magical in a way that detracts nothing from the realism of the events that hugely inspired it.

The Islands by Carlos Gamerro (translated by Ian Barnett)

Carlos Gamerro tackles more dark South American themes in a full-on action-packed and at times even hilarious fashion not attempted before, as the protagonist Felix still suffering from the traumatic effects of the Falklands War is drawn into an explosive present-day narrative. Perfect for those who want a thrilling page-turner that doesn’t sacrifice literary prowess.

Death and the Olive Grove by Marco Vichi (translated by Stephen Sartarelli)

Who would of thought that Italy would eventually come to rival the English in producing classic murder mysteries and detective novels? You know roughly what you’re going to get from detectives like Inspector Montelbano and Inspector Bordelli, the latter of whom on this occasion is tasked with finding the culprit of a series of gruesome murders. Still, it’s a genre that never gets tiresome if delivered with the panache, humour and wit with which Vichi writes.

Wash This Blood Clean from My Hand by Fred Vargas (translated by Sian Reynolds)

Fred Vargas’ Commissaire Adamsberg series is a refreshingly quirky alternative to so many ultra-slick modern crimes series knocking about these days. The award-winning fifth installment sees Adamsberg forced to clear his own name while a trident-wielding serial killer runs amok – a plot that brings about a surprising amount of laugh-out-loud moments and philosophical musings. 

The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa (translated by Archibald Colquhoun)

The oldest title on this list and perhaps the most prestigious. The Leopard is the ultimate historical novel, set amidst the turbulence in Sicily during the Rigordimento and navigating themes of class, loyalty and family. The labour and skill that must have gone into producing such a layered and intricate masterpiece – and translating it – is difficult to comprehend.

Robert Davies is Marketing Manager at London Translation Agency.  

http://www.london-translation-agency.co.uk/

Chambers Thesaurus, 4th Edition

I just got a copy of the new fourth edition of the Chambers Thesaurus and I can say that this is definitely a keeper. It has over 1100 pages of fantastic information and it is the kind of reference book that you just want to spend time skimming. Here are some of the things I like about this thesaurus.

It explains synonym nuances, so you understand the difference between, well, “difference” and “dissimilarity”, “diversity”, “variety”, “distinction”, “unlikeness”, “contrast”, “discrepancy”, and “divergence”. This will be especially helpful to people who are learning English as a foreign language, I think. When I taught English as a foreign language, I noticed how common it was for people to simply use synonyms they found in a thesaurus without actually understanding these nuances. But of course even native speakers need this sort of information.

The book also includes idioms, so you can find ways of varying them (“once in a while” or “sail through” or “a sticky situation”). People tend to overuse clichés, so being able to look them up in a thesaurus is really helpful.

The Chambers thesaurus also says if a term is technical, old-fashioned, formal, or colloquial, which is essential information when writing or translating. I have found that university students often get confused about formal versus informal language, so I will recommend that they check this thesaurus to get advice.

Another helpful feature is that the thesaurus gives extra information. “Carriage” doesn’t just give synonyms but also offers a list of forty different types of carriage, which can be especially helpful for writers or translators who need just the right kind of carriage in their text. Similarly, “zodiac” also gives the signs of the zodiac and their symbols, and you can learn which “rhetorical devices” exist.

The thesaurus also has quotations. For example, Harper Lee’s “The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience” illustrates “conscience” very well, but it is also a quotation worth knowing.

One of the most entertaining parts is the “word lover’s gallimaufry”, which has over 50 pages of lists and explanations. What’s the difference between a flexitarian and a pescatarian? How can you express disbelief (“what a load of cobblers!” or “pull the other one!”)? What terms might an estate agent or a gamer use? What are some global English words you can use to spice up your language usage (“bergie” or “pom”)? What do you call someone who collects cigar bands and who is a “vecturist”? What are some types of extreme sports (“tombstoning” and “zorbing” are among them)? This section is fascinating and amusing.

Since the Chambers thesaurus is so big, it covers a lot of territory. That means the book takes up quite a bit of space on the shelf, but I think it’s worth it.

In short, this thesaurus (or “lexicon”, “dictionary”, “wordbook”, “vocabulary”, “repository”, or “wordfinder”) is really practical (and “valuable” and “worthwhile”). It is definitely the thesaurus I’ll be using from now on, and the one I’ll recommend to my students and my fellow writers, editors, and translators.

Word Nerds and Scrabble

I can’t help it – as a word-lover, I’m a big fan of Scrabble. Travel Scrabble accompanies me on many trips and I regularly play Scrabble online with my mother, who lives 4000 miles away.

Scrabble and Bananagrams are favorite games to play with some of my other word nerd friends. And I play Alfapet (also now called Scrabble), the Swedish version of the game too.

It’s not just that it’s a fun game. It also helps teach me new words and keep other words fresh in my mind. So it’s beneficial and relaxing and enjoyable all at once.

So when my partner showed me this video with tips for how to improve at Scrabble, I had to watch.

Revising and Editing for Translators

It can happen that we translators sometimes have to work with editors. But before we get to that stage, we have to edit ourselves. Brian Mossop’s book Revising and Editing for Translators is about what it means for a translator to be a proofreader and/or editor him- or herself, and the book explains it all in an easily understood and interesting way.

Sometimes translators hire other translators and have to check their work before the customer gets it, and sometimes a translator is employed by a company to proofread someone else’s translation. But despite translators proofreading our own work (we should do that anyway, but I know not everyone does) before sending it to the customer, we do not know always how to work with someone else’s texts.

Mossop discuss why a proofreader may be needed (there may be errors in the text, for example, or text style is not appropriate for the subject) and the types of proofreaders/editors available (subject-matter reviewers, copy editors, etc.) and various types of proofreading (scanning, spot-checking, etc.). Then he explains what it means to look for and fix typographical errors, grammatical mistakes, idiomatic errors, typos, punctuation mistakes, logic errors, factual errors, problems with the structure, among other things, and how to think about how a writer/translator uses language and style, and how readers influence a text (their background, for example, and why they read the text).

Mossop also provides issues to consider (such as when and where a translation is to be read or what errors a particular translator usually makes), and he gives advice on how to work with the translator whose texts you are proofreading (it is important to explain why changes are being made, rather than simply pointing out that they are necessary, so that the translator learns). So there is useful information in this book, although much of what he discusses is not actually that specific to translation.

The book also includes exercises, questions for discussion, suggestions for further reading and a glossary, so it is particularly suitable for students and new translators. But it is also worth reading for advanced translators. It contains information that is useful for both translators who are proofreading texts translated by others but also for translators who want to be better at editing their own texts.

New Academic Year

As the new academic year gets closer, I start thinking about who the new students will be and how it will be best to teach them. I try to improve my teaching style and techniques each year and to adapt how I teach specific material.

Besides making some of the obvious changes, such as changing which texts I’ll be using and how I’ll approach them and what activities and assignments each class will contain, this year I’m also working on encouraging my students to be more active about their learning processes.

Usually, I ask my students at the beginning of the semester to think about their roles as students and classmates. In other words, I ask them what their contributions to class should be, how they should behave, how they should treat one another, how they should work on their assignments, and so on. (It generally takes a while for them to start coming up with responses to my questions, but once they start, they can’t stop. Come to class, listen respectfully when others speak, take notes, do the homework, use correct grammar, come see the teacher to discuss work, and so on.)

I also ask them to discuss what my role as a teacher is. This often surprises them, because they don’t generally consider the fact that I also have responsibilities. I find it quite helpful for us all to remember that we all have duties towards each other and towards the course, and to spell out what those duties are.

Then, at the end of the semester, I remind them of what we discussed and ask if we met all our responsibilities. Students generally are very pleased to realize how much they actually have accomplished over the course of the term. Also, it is a reminder that they are active members of a joint project (i.e. the course) and that they can contribute towards making the class a success.

This year, I’ve decided to add to this by asking them to write down several goals for themselves. These goals will be seen by no one but themselves but they will revisit them a few times over the course of the semester in order to insure that they are actively taking charge of their learning and their lives.

What changes are you making for this academic year?

Market Research

This list of journals that accept literary translations is definitely worth looking at, since it provides plenty of potential markets.

Shoot the Puppy

Even if you have a particular language as your mother tongue, there are always words and phrases that you do not know. I am an American-English-speaking person but I live in England and it sometimes happens that my partner, friends or students use British English words and phrases that I cannot understand. It can certainly feel a little weird sometimes that I don’t know common English words, even though it’s my native language. And if I translate into British English, which I do often, I must know those. For those who translate from English, it’s also key to understand such expressions.

But I’ve got a book that can help us. A friend gave it to me for my birthday in 2010; sadly, she got ill and passed away soon after that, which is probably why I’ve taken so long to write about it. The book is called Shoot the Puppy and it’s by Tony Thorne, who works at King's College London and writes about slang, among other things. He is described as a slang detective, who does research on and explains many interesting English phrases.

Many people know the word moonlighting, which means you have another job at night (i.e. when the moon is shining), for example, but how many understand the word sunlighting? Well, it means you have another job one day a week. If you moonlight or sunlight, you can do so by sitting next to Nellie; that means to learn on the job by watching what others do. We have to knife-and-fork it. What? We’ll use a knife and fork to what? That means we have to deal with a problem one piece at a time. Aye, aye, Shepherd’s pie! Yes, I'll do what you want and thereby knife-and-fork situation.

You may have prochtoheliosis, a problem we can try to knife-and-fork. What is it that you have? Helios is the Greek word for sun and proktos means rectum, so someone who has prochtoheliosis thinks the sun shines from his or her rectum, and that he or she is the most important person in the world. Such a person may also be luxorexic, which means that he or she enjoys the finer things in life and always wants to pamper him- or herself. Thorne’s book contains many words and phrases and gives examples of how to use them.

He also includes information on how the term came to be and on similar phrases. There is a glossary as well. The book is funny and interesting but also useful. Come on, shoot the puppy – dare to do the unthinkable – and buy Tony Thorne’s book.

Academic Writing

Academic writing is a very particular form of writing, with strict rules about how you can write and what you can write about. It also tends to rules the lives of academics (if you’ve ever heard of “publish or perish”, you know what I’m talking about), even though our writing is only one part of what we do (teaching, admin work, supervision, engagement, enterprise, outreach, and so on are also important aspects of our jobs).

So it’s interesting to see that there are some tentative moves afoot to challenge the system. I’m personally not convinced that it really makes sense for there to be just a few top journals per field and for the system to be such that if you don’t get your articles published there, it is hard to get tenure and/or promotion.

Check out this piece and this one to learn about a possible academic strike and some of the greater issues there are with this system.

With the Research Excellence Framework looming over us and scaring many, perhaps it’s time to rethink the system.

Translationness and “Writers Who Translate”

Many months ago, I attended the London Book Fair, as I have done a number of times in the past. It’s an exhausting but fun trade event, and there are always some good nuggets of information or new ideas.

Daniel Hahn, my colleague at the British Centre for Literary Translation, and Turkish-to-English translator Maureen Freely had a Q&A session about being a translator.

Danny commented at one point, “The target text is the thing.” He spoke about how he wants readers to read his work as though it had been written in English and for them not to consider that it is a translation. Obviously, I disagree with this to a certain extent (read this). But it’s clearly a fine balance.

And meanwhile, Maureen said she thinks about translators as “writers who translate”, so their writing skills matter more than their source language skills.

Both of these are interesting ideas that are highly debated in translation studies. What do you think?

Tolkien and Translation

I was never a J.R.R. Tolkien fan as a child and for whatever reason I was quite reluctant to read his works until the past few years when, encouraged by my Tolkien-fan partner, I gave it a go. And I discovered that I actually really quite liked his writing.

So then I got interested in learning more about him and I read Humphrey Carpenter’s good (if sometimes a bit too fawning or overly detailed) biography. I was amazed to find out just how learned he was (although the books should have been a pretty clear indication) and especially how good with languages he was (both actual tongues and those he invented).

Tolkien, it turns out, also did some translation. And he had some very strict views about the art of translation. Although I haven’t yet been able to find the introduction he wrote to a translation of Beowulf, Carpenter explains that in that text, Tolkien says that translators must adopt a “high style” when translating texts about so-called “heroic matters”. Carpenter goes on to connect this to Tolkien’s own writing style, particularly in regard to the famous trilogy, The Lord of the Rings, which he was working on at the same time.

The film version of the trilogy is very good (and I’m eager to see The Hobbit when it comes out later this year), but I urge you to read Tolkien’s works and to pay close attention the language. And click here to read about how his trilogy was translated to Swedish.

Alpha Beta by John Man

John Man’s book Alpha Beta is on the history of the Roman alphabet, as you might be able to guess from the title. He covers a range of related topics, such as non-alphabet systems, symbols, rebus, archaeology, orality, and history, and his book is imaginative and exciting. He includes many interesting titbits of information, such as how some of what we think is Roman is actually Etruscan and how Cyrillic is named after Cyril but wasn’t created by him. He refers to languages as diverse as Chinese, Egyptian, Sumerian, and Korean and he explains “why Czechs and Slovaks today look to the West, and use the Latin alphabet.” (299)

One of the major points Man makes in this enjoyable work is that what alphabet is used where and how is often about power. “Script, status, power, identity: the four were indissoluble.” (100) He analyses hieroglyphics and the Greek alphabet to explore their importance to their own societies as well as to later ones. “With this new-fangled intellectual device [writing], the Greeks could aware their own though processes, become self-aware, refine ideas, exchange them, build upon them, create systems of ethics, philosophy and science, evolve new forms of poetry, pioneer history. In brief, it was the alphabet that allowed the ancient Greeks to lay the foundations of civilized discourse as Europe and its descendant cultures came to know it.” (21)

He also explores why alphabets change, or don’t. “Change, it seems, does not arise spontaneously from within. Something has to happen to release a new creative impulse.” (81)

He has what he terms three Working Theories of Script Evolution:
“1 In a writing system, complexity knows no bounds and imposes none.
2 A writing system will last as long as its culture, unless changed by force.
3 New writing systems emerge only in new, young, ambitious cultures.” (82)
In other words, much is required before a language will change.

Another interesting section in this book is where Man discusses four assumptions about literacy and culture and explains how they are false. The assumptions are:
“that alphabetic literacy must have spread from the top levels of society downwards;
that the alphabet would immediately be considered a superior achievement, and be instantly taken up by anyone with a claim to intelligence and culture;
that non-literate cultures are necessarily simple and inferior;
that poetry is more refined than prose and must therefore come later.” (231) Man demolishes these ideas.

While some people might think that one alphabet is better or more sensible than others and while Man does comment that Korean is perhaps one of the most sophisticated and successful of all alphabets, he also writes, “the alphabet is an intellectual device with which to symbolize speech, and it is a mistake to equate it exactly with anything in the real world. Since it exists in minds, any physical representation is only one of an infinite variety. There is no Absolute Alphabet.” (114) There are many possible alphabets, with no single right one.

Wales Arts Review

In a bit of shameless self-promotion, I can point out that I’ve been publishing some book reviews in Wales Arts Review lately. There are plenty of other good articles there, so do check out the magazine.

Translating Poetry

This lovely text on translating poetry by Willis Barnstone is definitely worth a read.

Robert McCrum’s Globish

In Robert McCrum’s book Globish, he discusses the history and meaning of English, and its relevance today. This is a book that feels longer than it actually is because it covers a lot of ground, looking at history (slavery in America, the Seven Years War, etc), current events and situations (India’s Silicone Valley, for example), and important people (Mark Twain, Abraham Lincoln, V.S. Naipaul, Barack Obama, etc), and the connections to language. It goes back and forth in time and sometimes the book feels too detailed. Despite that, it shows the history of English and makes predictions about where it is going.

As McCrum explains, “‘Globalization’ is a word that first slipped into its current usage during the 1960s; and the globalization of English, and English literature, law, money and values, is the cultural revolution of my generation, before and after the ‘credit crunch’. Combined with the biggest IT innovations since Gutenberg, it continues to inspire the most comprehensive transformation of our society in five hundred, even a thousand years.” (3)

He explores England and the development of the English language from the Normans and old English (for example, “The cultural revolution of Christianity both enriched Old English with scores of new words (apostle, pope, angel, psalter) and, just as importantly, also introduced the capacity to articulate abstract thought.” (26)) through medieval and Renaissance periods (Shakespeare plays a starring role, of course), up to modern times, with stops along the way in creole, black English, Indian English, texting, the influence of cyberspace, and more. He even includes some discussion of translation, particular in you regard to Alfred, King of Wessex during the ninth century, and of course in terms of the bible.

Today, he points out, “global English, floating free from its troubled British and American past, has begun to take on a life of its own…the twenty-first century expression of British and American English – the world’s English – is about to make its own declaration of independence from the linguistic past, in both syntax and vocabulary.” (6)

It’s worth quoting one of McCrum’s final paragraphs in full, as it sums up his thoughts about where English is going: “The enemies of English culture will criticize its guile and greed, but the outcome is beyond question. In the first decade of the twenty-first century English-speaking people and their culture are more widespread in numbers and influence than any civilization the world has ever seen. Globish, a world dialect, will be less a language and more a means to an end. It will continue to enfranchise millions who lack the benefits of a formal education into a global economy and provide a means of communication that will, for the most part, leave local languages unscathed. Globish might seem to have imperial roots, but it is not imperious. It derives its character from a language that has always been hospitable to change, from the roots up.” (257)

Vacation

It’s time for me to have a little break from blogging, so I’ll see you back here in a couple of weeks. Hope you are having a great summer!

Versatile Blogger Award

I was really pleased to receive a Versatile Blogger Award from translator Judith Carrera a few months ago. I’ve had so many other things to post in the meantime that I failed to acknowledge Judith’s kindness.

My Spanish skills have faded quite a bit over the years, but from what I can understand of Judith’s blog and website, she has some interesting thoughts, so do check out her site if you can read Spanish.

Translation Tools

I’m a low-tech translator. I use my knowledge, dictionaries, other reference works, the internet, translation networks, and other contacts in order to translate.

But I know that a lot of other translators rely on tools. I don’t, in part because I think they actually require quite a bit of work that makes them not quite worthwhile. But here’s a link to a short piece on translation tools. I don’t agree with the list (people are needed for much more than the final draft!), but it’s interesting to see where non-language professionals think our field is going.

Infographic on Languages on the Web

Interestingly, infographics seem quite popular lately. Here’s one that Matt Bramowicz of Translation Cloud sent me about languages on the internet.

Bilingualism Across the U.S. Infographic

I thought this infographic on bilingualism in the United States was interesting. Bilinguals/multilinguals have skills that we should take advantage of, rather than mock; some of these people can be future language teachers or translators.

Dead Words

Dead Words is a fun website that illustrates dead/forgotten words.

Translating Just One Word

Along with the plethora of emails lately about crowdsourcing translations (see the last post), a few people have contacted me about their new programs for “translating just one word”. I’m not sure why such programs would be useful, though their marketing folks claim it’s a convenient way of helping people read and understand websites.

Such programs won’t be successful or beneficial until machines have a way of learning context. And if computer programs are only fed with one word, they won’t be given the context anyway. As you saw a few posts back on what can go wrong with just using the dictionary to look up words, you need context and you need people’s brains in order to make sense of words, phrases, and sentences.

If you need to translate just one word, you’d be better analyzing the sentence and looking up the word while being away of the context. A program is completely unnecessary.

Crowdsourcing Translations

Recently, a number of companies have contacted me to ask me to advertise their new free crowdsourcing translation services. I suppose I don’t feel willing to do this, because I am suspicious of just how well such services can work.

For example, many of us look at Wikipedia for information, but we know that it isn’t always accurate, so we always make sure we check the info against other sites or texts. Would people do that with translations as well? Would they have the ability to do so?

Also, how can non-professional translators understand all the language and context in a given text? How can they know exactly what is involved in translation work? Would you let a crowd of people operate on you, just because it was free and they thought they’d know how to do it? No? Then why let a crowd of people translate your texts?

One of these websites even wrote to me to say that besides their free option, they also allow “customers” the option of paying for a better service, one that “allow[s] users of their programs to opt for a more accurate and professional level of translation through hybrid translation, if they so choose.” If you want “a more accurate and professional level of translation”, why not pay a translator? You know, the old-fashioned method of getting a translation done.

What do you think?

Pardon My Dictionary

An English teacher in France sent me the link to her blog, Pardon My Dictionary, which she describes as “a very modest collection of "how not to translate" examples provided by my pupils and students who have not yet grasped that the dictionary is a marvelous tool providing you use it correctly, and that online translation resources cannot make silk purses out of sows’ ears”.

As a former English as a foreign language teacher myself, I recognize this phenomenon. I can’t tell you the number of times I’d get in homework from students that would say things such as “You sheep food at a restaurant.” Sheep, you ask? Yes, because my students would translate “Man får mat på en restaurang” directly from Swedish, where “får” means both “sheep” and “get”. Again and again, I had to ask my students to use the dictionary, but use it wisely; in other words, don’t just pick the first definition or translation offered in it.

So check out Pardon My Dictionary; it will make you laugh or, possibly, cry.

Scientific and Technical Translation Explained

I met Jody Byrne at a translation conference in Shanghai in 2008 and he struck me as an intelligent, funny translator and academic. So I was thrilled to that his latest book, TEXT, has just been published. I look forward to reading it and I think many of you would find it useful too.

The Case of the Harry Potter Translators

We already know that translators aren’t always visible and don’t always receive fair treatment. But this case is even worse than you can imagine. Gili Bar-Hillel Semo is a prominent translator from English to Hebrew as well as an editor, and she doesn’t deserve such bad treatment by Warner Bros (or any organization, obviously).

It’s shocking to see how horribly translators can be treated and it makes one worry about the state of the translation industry.

What can and should be done about this?

Literary Translation Summer School

Every year, the British Centre for Literary Translation at the University of East Anglia (where I work) hosts the Literary Translation Summer School. Here are the details about this year’s event.

22 – 27 July 2012
University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK

Bringing together writers and translators for a week of literary translation
workshops, panel discussions, lectures and readings.

Workshops translating from Dutch, French, German, Japanese,
Norwegian and Spanish into English

Writers–in-residence: Daniel Gascón, Nino Haratischwili, Furukawa Hideo,
Martin Page, Gustaaf Peek, Kjersti Skomsvold

Workshop leaders: David Colmer, Kari Dickson, Katy Derbyshire, Michael Emmerich,
Adriana Hunter, Anne McLean

Further information from www.bclt.org.uk email bclt@uea.ac.uk

British Centre for Literary Translation, School of Literature, Drama and Creative
Writing, University of East Anglia, Norwich Research Park, Norwich, NR4 7TJ, UK
Tel: 01603 592785; Fax: 01603 592737

Vote for Brave New Words

Nordic Translation Conference

In 2008, I organized the first ever Nordic Translation Conference. I’m working together with Dr. Gudrun Rawoens on organizing the second one now. Here is the first call for papers.

Nordic Translation Conference 2013

Call for Papers

The second Nordic Translation Conference will take place on 4, 5, and 6 April 2013 at the University of East Anglia, in Norwich, England.

This quinquennial event is solely dedicated to the particular challenges and pleasures of translating between and among the Nordic countries, which are often closely related culturally, if not always linguistically. It is open to academics, students, translators, publishers, and others who work with the Nordic languages. The first such conference took place in London at the Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies in 2008 and it resulted in the book Northern Lights: Translation in the Nordic Countries (Peter Lang, 2009).

The keynote speakers in 2013 will include Andrew Chesterman, Riitta Oittinen, and Anna Mauranen. As in 2008, there will be workshops, talks, panels, and dual-language readings. Both academics and practising translators are encouraged to attend and present at the conference.

The conference will look at literary and non-literary translation of all kinds, including interpreting and subtitling, both between various Nordic languages and also between English and the Nordic languages. Nordic here includes Danish, Faroese, Finnish, Greenlandic, Icelandic, Norwegian, any of the Sámi dialects, and Swedish. Topics can include, but are not limited to, specific linguistic issues involved in translation/interpretation between two or more languages, analysis of particular texts/genres, professional issues, translating texts by or about minority groups, the translator/interpreter’s role, and the effect of cultural similarities/differences among Nordic countries.

In addition, the conference will include several workshops on relevant topics, such as working with specific languages or kinds of texts, using computer tools, finding reference materials, and so on. Those interested in running workshops are also invited to submit proposals.

Please send proposals (250-400 words) for workshops by 1 June 2012 and for conference papers by 15 August 2012 to B.J. Epstein and Gudrun Rawoens by e-mail at conference@nordictranslation.net or by regular mail to B.J. Epstein at the School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing, University of East Anglia, Norwich Research Park, Norwich, England, NR4 7TJ. Along with the proposal, please include a brief biographical note.

Conference details are available at http://www.nordictranslation.net. For ease of communication, English should be the primary conference language.

A Second Round-Up of Articles

Here are even more interesting articles. Most of these were sent to me by readers or by the people who wrote them/posted them. I’m always happy to receive suggestions for interesting articles on language, literature, or translation.

This piece looks at the origins of some American phrases.

I had no idea that the Irish language had had such an impact on English. This article gives some examples.

This piece on body language links back to my posts on interviewing. Be careful what you say with your appearance and with your body language.

This article looks at grammar rules.

I’m not sure what I think of this piece, which claims to have ideas for how to sound smarter. Fake a British accent? I don’t know about that. Don’t say “um” so often? Um, I guess.

Looking to learn a new language? This article suggests which languages are easiest for native English-speakers to learn. What do you think?

What English phrases are spoken/written incorrectly most often? Find out here.

I have a real passion or languages and am often embarrassed/astounded by the way in which English-speaking countries don’t encourage language-learning. Read more about thishere.

A Round-Up of Articles

Here are some articles you might find enjoyable/interesting. I have so many articles to share with you, that I’m going to do it in two posts.

Since January, I’ve been writing for the Huffington Post. It’s been a lot of fun, because I get a chance to write about my research and to link it to current events. You can check out my articles here.

Here’s an article on reading foreign fiction.

I love Oliver Burkeman’s articles. In this one, he discusses the way languages might influence our habits, based on how closely related the future and present tenses are.

This piece from the BBC is about a young man who speaks 11 languages and uses those languages to tell us about his passion for learning them.

This website purports to offer 15,000 useful phrases for speaking/writing.

And here are tips for being happy. Life is short, so make the most of it.

Oh, My Aching Back

Translators, writers, editors, academics, and teachers spend a lot of time sitting at our desks, often hunched over a computer. This leads to bad posture, tight muscles, and aching limbs. How do you cope with all this?

I know you’re supposed to get up every hour and have a stretch and a quick walk, but I frequently am so into my work that I forget. I end up sitting by my computer for hours on end, so focused that I don’t realize how much my body is hurting. One thing I try to do to combat this is to keep a glass of water next to me. I drink water constantly, so I am forced to get up pretty often, both to go to the bathroom and also to refill my glass.

I also try to sit on one of those large fitness balls when I am doing some reading that doesn’t require me to sit at the computer. Fitness balls make you sit properly, even if it’s hard to sit on them for too many minutes at a time.

But despite my best efforts and despite the various tools at my disposal (a foot rest, a raised screen, etc), I still end up with a huge amount of pain. I go to the gym and for swims regularly, because keeping active makes a big difference. Also, I finally found a good massage therapist and I try to indulge when I can, though it isn’t cheap. It’s better to spend some money and not have so much pain, even if part of me struggles with the idea of enjoying such luxuries.

What do you do to prevent or handle work-related aches and pains?

Swedish Poetry Program

I heard about this and thought it sounded interesting. I’ll be listening.

On April 6, the Center for Translation Studies at Barnard College hosted "Swedish Poetry Today," a program of readings and discussion with Anna Hallberg, Jörgen Gassilewski, and Johannes Görannson.

Center director Peter Connor recently sat down with moderator Elizabeth Clark Wessel to preview the upcoming event and to discuss her work as English-language translator of Hallberg's poetry.

This is the first of a series of audio-interviews on translation to be conducted at the Center.

Listen to it on YouTube at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLrX6PXEiGw

Translating Expressive Language in Children’s Literature

In a post that is shameless self-promotion, I’d like to mention that the book based on my PhD dissertation is now out. You can find more information here.

I had a wonderful experience as a PhD student, partially due to my fantastic supervisors, Professor Duncan Large and Professor Andy Rothwell. Hearing other people’s horror stories about the lack of support and consideration they got from their supervisors only reinforces my sense of gratitude at how thoughtful, helpful, and kind Duncan and Andy always were. It’s thanks to them that I have gotten this far.

I’m quite pleased the book is out, because I do think the work is actually pretty useful, for both translators and academics, because it looks at a topic that hasn’t been researched much in the past and offers concrete, pragmatic suggestions. I hope some of you will find it beneficial.

Chapbook Contest

Some of you might be interested in this contest.

ANOMALOUS PRESS ANNOUNCES OUR FIRST-EVER CHAPBOOK CONTEST!

March 15 – May 15

$500 prize plus publication!

Finalist manuscripts will also be considered for publication, and all submissions will be considered for publication in the journal.

$15 fee.

We will publish the winning manuscript in each of the following categories:

* Translations. Specifically innovative translations, translations that draw attention to themselves, hybrid translations, translations that defy convention, translations that prey on, magnify, distort, and bring greatness to source texts.
* Poetry. Original poetry.

Christian Hawkey will judge the translation category.

Christian Hawkey is the author of Petitions for an Alien Relative (a chapbook by hand held editions, 2010), Ventrakl (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2010), Citizen Of (Wave Books, 2007), Hour, Hour, a chapbook which includes drawings by the artist Ryan Mrowzowski (Delirium Press, 2006), and The Book of Funnels (Verse Press, 2004), winner of the 2006 Kate Tufts Discovery Award. In 2006 he was given a Creative Capital Innovative Literature Award and he has also received awards from the Poetry Fund and the Academy of American Poets. He teaches at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York.

Poetry judge will be announced soon!

Electronic submissions only. Full guidelines available at www.anomalouspress.org/chapbooks.php

Archaeology and Language by Colin Renfrew

Archaeology and Language by Colin Renfrew is a dated but still relevant book that serves as a good introduction to the idea of using archaeology as a way of tracing the history of language. As he states at the beginning of the book, we need not look at just economic developments to explore the history of humanity because national, ethnic and linguistic identities are important too. Thus, people study ruins, documents, pottery, language, and more as a way of understanding the development of languages.

Renfrew admits how “extraordinary” it is that languages in Europe and Asia (India and Iran, for example) are related, and then asks “But what is the historical reality underlying this relationship? Where did these languages come from? Did they derive from a single group of people who migrated? Or is there an entirely different explanation? This is the Indo-European problem, and the enigma which has still not found a satisfactory answer.” (11) Many scholars have attempted to understand this by a) trying to construct a Proto-Indo-European (PIE) language that is the parent of all the other languages and b) by trying to figure out where the so-called Urheimat, or homeland, of PIE was.

Renfrew feels we must question “the extent to which it is legitimate to construct a Proto-Indo-European language, drawing upon the cognate forms of the words in the various Indo-European languages that are known.” (18) As an example of how far wrong we can go with this method, he uses the example of Latin. He quotes Ernst Pulgram, who tried to reconstruct Latin based on the Romance languages and to thereby make sense out of “Latin” culture, without actually looking at Latin that we know, and he found that what we would construct is actually different in many ways from actual Latin and what we know of ancient Roman culture (85). Hence it is argued that we cannot reconstruct languages in this way.

As for the Urheimat, Renfrew runs through the various theories, such as that the people who spoke PIE came from north-central Europe, or that they came from eastern Europe and the steppes, and some scholars have even suggested northern Europe, such as Lithuania. But he argues that this idea of a homeland is problematic and that many who have suggested it have fallen into “dangerous traps. They have placed too much faith in the idea of some reconstructed Proto-Indo-European vocabulary, from which some kind of word-picture of the original homeland might be put together. They have too readily assumed that a given pottery form, or an assemblage of items of material equipment can be equated directly with a group of people and hence supposedly with a particular language or language group. And they have not adequately explained why all these languages, or the speakers of all these languages, should be wandering around Europe and western Asia so tirelessly, in a series of migrations, thus setting up the pattern of different languages which we see today.” (75)

Renfrew discusses the idea that the similarities in the Indo-European languages came from contact, not common ancestors with one homeland, and he offers the various models that might work for this idea (replacement models, colonization, or continuous development).
In sum, this book is an interesting exploration of the history of the Indo-European languages, with some sections that read almost like mystery novels, because of the excitement (for example, when he discusses the discovery of Hittite or explores the history of the Celts). It’s not the most recent book on the subject, but it’s an important one.

The Next Generation of Translators

I teach in an MA program in literary translation. Every year, students come in, expecting that once they have their MAs, they will be able to work full-time as translators of poetry or plays or whatever else. Every year, a number of students come in, sneering at people who translate users’ manuals or cookbooks or financial reports and vowing never to be one of them.

I suppose I see part of my job as informing students about the market for literary translation and about being realistic with them. An MA in literary translation will help them, of course, but it will not automatically enable them to support themselves by translating novels. Very few people – even well established, highly talented translators – can live off their literary translation work.

I also point out to my students that many people combine literary translation with other kinds of translation or with teaching or editing or research or work in the charity sector or work at banks and so on. I tell them how stimulating I personally find it to combine different types of translation and how it helps improve my language skills and my translation skills and also teaches me about new topics.

Most of the time, the students are definitely not convinced. Maybe it’s because they’re young (for the most part) and idealistic and think that everything can and will just be handed to them. Maybe they genuinely think they are too good for anything but translating song lyrics and memoirs. Maybe they don’t want to think about the fact that they will have to work hard in order to have a career in translation. Maybe they don’t have any money worries and have relatives who will support them as they translate short stories. Maybe there’s something else going on.

Of course I feel a bit hurt and shocked at the way they mock anything other than literary translation (one student actually said, “I would never lower myself to translate cookbooks!” even after I had mentioned how many cookbooks I have translated). But more importantly, I worry about what will happen when these students go out into the “real world”, armed with their MAs in literary translation, expecting to be able to support themselves on such work. I try to give them hints about how to improve their chances, and I organize talks with the Careers Centre on campus, and I talk to the students about practical matters such as writing a CV, networking, building a website, signing up with agencies, getting mentoring, and so on. So I try to do the best I can as a teacher and fellow translator.

But some students are resistant and only want to talk about translation theory. Some yawn as I suggest book fairs they might want to attend and how they can exchange business cards with editors and publishers. Some even criticize me, saying that I am negative and make them worry about what will happen next. So it’s a matter of trying to gently be realistic with them, to the best of my ability, hoping something that will sink in, while also continuing to encourage them.

What tips do you have for working with the next generation of translators?

Is That a Fish In Your Ear? by David Bellos

I read quite a few books on translation and I can say that in my opinion the best book on translation came out in 2011 was Is That a Fish In Your Ear? by David Bellos. Bellos is professor of literature at Princeton and he translates from French to English.
Bellos’ book is not complicated and it is not about theory. Much of what he writes about has been written about in other books already, and often one can find much more information in other books than in his book. But what I like here is that he writes short, fairly simple mini-essays on many different aspects of translation. You can read a chapter here and a chapter there and learn something new and interesting without having to read the whole book if you do not want it. He writes, for example, about what translation is and is not, and what people say and think about translation, and how to use dictionaries, and on interpretation, and the European Union and language, and what the news has to do with translation, and automatic translation (he writes that it is not possible right now because “what you can say by means of translation is what the word means in the context in which it occurs” (p. 83), and a computer does not understand context), and dialects, and how we must rely on the translator or interpreter, and about poetry, and much more. It is clear that with so many topics, Bellos’ does not into much depth with them; in other words, in this book he discusses a little bit about a lot, and not much about just a little, as some readers would probably prefer. Personally, I like being able to dip in, but I understand that such a book is not for everyone.

What would we do without translation? Bellos writes, “Instead of using translation, we could learn the languages of all the communities we wish to engage with; or we could decide to speak the same language; or else adopt a single common language for communicating with other communities.” (p. 7) With 7000 or more different languages in the world it sounds unlikely. So we need translators, but why then do we have phrases such as traduttore traditore? Why are people suspicious of translators and translation in general? You can read about this in Bellos’ book.

Another thing that you can read about is how many non-translators believe that there is a right or good translation and a wrong or bad one. Bellos writes, “A translation can’t be right or wrong in the manner of a school quiz or a bank statement. A translation is more like a portrait in oils. The artist may add a pearl earring, give an extra flush to the cheek or miss out the grey hairs in the sideburns – and still give us a good likeness.” (p. 331) A translation is an interpretation and everyone interprets differently.

Sometimes a reader might wish that Bellos had written a whole book instead of just a short chapter on something, but as a whole, his book is very interesting and worth reading. His book is “en portrait in oils” – you or I might have added some jewelry or removed some hair, but it is still a beautiful painting.